To the Sharks: Vladimir Malakhov and a conditional first-round draft pick
To the Devils:Jim Fahey and the rights to left wing Alexander Korolyuk.

Wow- trading a retired player to another team, I was wondering when something like this would happen with the new CBA.

I guess it's safe to say we will see more of this happening in the coming years- if a team needs to unload a non-producing or cap-hitting player they will package them with prospects and picks and send them to a team with cap room.

Basically the Devils are getting cap relief to sign their players- there goes the long long shot of plucking a Gionta or Gomez.

If the NHL approves the transaction, then it sets a precedent. Teams will not worry as much about signing 35-year-old players to multi-year contract because they know that as long as they offer enough incentives, there is always another team willing to take on the contract and cap hit. Even though the CBA bans trading of cash and cap space, this trade is basically a trade of 1st round pick for cap space, because I doubt Malakov is going to dress for the Sharks.

Kel wrote:If the NHL approves the transaction, then it sets a precedent. Teams will not worry as much about signing 35-year-old players to multi-year contract because they know that as long as they offer enough incentives, there is always another team willing to take on the contract and cap hit. Even though the CBA bans trading of cash and cap space, this trade is basically a trade of 1st round pick for cap space, because I doubt Malakov is going to dress for the Sharks.

Even with this precedent, I still think teams will worry a huge amount about signing older players to multi-year deals, sure New Jersey got away with it, but won't look at the fact that a team in the new cap era where developing prospects will be crucial to success had to give up a first-round pick as a penalty for making a stupid deal say, "Oh well, so long as it only costs me a first round pick, okay".

MarkMM wrote:but won't look at the fact that a team in the new cap era where developing prospects will be crucial to success had to give up a first-round pick as a penalty for making a stupid deal say.

Actually, developing prospects isn't nearly as crucial as drafting high impact prospects that can contribute significantly in the first years of their contracts (with salary capped by rookie max) Crosby, Ovechkin, Phaneuf, Ward, etc, contributed right away without teams developing them. On the other hand, the Canucks tried to develop Kesler and faced some difficulty when his rookie contract expired.

I know that San Jose got a first rounder out of it for taking on Malakhov's cap-hit (and I actually don't think Malakhov has signed his retirement papers yet, though his knees are apparently shot), what if they need that cap space for deadline acquisitions? Say that they have a string of short-term injuries (only long term injuries come off the cap), putting them near the cap, and then with the addition of $3.5M from Malakhov it could mean they won't have room to land the player they want at the deadline. I could see a team like Pittsburgh or Washington that doesn't have a chance doing this, but a team like San Jose that will likely make a run for the cup this year, it could be risky.
Though conversely, if they still do have cap room, they could always flip that first round pick for a good player at the deadline.

I think the ruling is fair. The main problem was whether or not mogilny suffered the injury in the AHl or the NHL. I think if we saw the medical data we would see that the injury is a chronic and degenerative and one that could not be fully diagnised at the time the contract was signed (he passed a physical after all). But an injury that started in the NHL and really it was irrelevant where he played (NHL or AHL) as he would be unfit to play the remainder of his contract.

I see no problem with the ruling. It really is no different than any other long term injury. For example no one seems to care that the Bruins have a $4.1 mil dollar LTI exemption (Zhamnov). The only thing the league has to do is make sure Mogilny is medically evaluated on a regular basis to make sure he is still unfit to play (at the Devil's expense of course). If that's the case, it is no different than if any other player experiences a season ending injury on their first shift in the opening game.

This has nothing to do with old players counting towartds the cap no matter what. They do UNLESS THEY ARE INJURED. Mogilny very clearly is. Dave Andreychuk (just slow and old) for example is not so he will still count towards the cap. Vladimir Malakhov is not so the Devils had to trade his cap space away at the cost of a first rounder.

This really is just whining from some GMs who frankly are pissed because they didn;t leave enough cap room to absorb a guy like Malakhov and get a potential blue chip prospect in return. And I have to imagine the whining GMs are probably the Flyers and Rangers...they are usually the ones that whine when the Devils do something.

Personally I thought this was a pretty obvious part of the CBA. Teams can find a way to "trade for cap space". But so what? If it costs them a first round pick to do so everytime the organization will quickly collapse.

MarkMM wrote:but won't look at the fact that a team in the new cap era where developing prospects will be crucial to success had to give up a first-round pick as a penalty for making a stupid deal say.

Actually, developing prospects isn't nearly as crucial as drafting high impact prospects that can contribute significantly in the first years of their contracts (with salary capped by rookie max) Crosby, Ovechkin, Phaneuf, Ward, etc, contributed right away without teams developing them. On the other hand, the Canucks tried to develop Kesler and faced some difficulty when his rookie contract expired.

For sure, anyone would want a blue-chip prospect who can immediately make an impact over players you have to develop, but in the cap system, you still need to have a full range of prospects in order to have organizational depth and to hold down your salary inflation. Part of the reason we're in cap trouble is because we didn't have an NHL prospect ready to step up into the third/fourth line centre role and do a solid job of it, and we went out and paid $1.1 million for Chouinard to have limited ice-time. Part of the reason our defense is suspect is not only because of the inexperience of our bottom three, but because if any of our top three go down we don't have NHL prospects with upside that are ready to step in. These kinds of players, drafted late in the first or in the second or third rounds, guys like Rahimi and Edler will be in a few years, are the kinds of players depth is built around, not ready for full-time NHL duty, but ready to be turned to to plug injury holes.

Kesler is an anomaly that 99/100 times won't happen, remember that before Clarke threw sanity to the wind, we were about to sign him for $850k/950k, which would have set him up to be solid value for a few more years.

I know this is an old topic, but I think it's a calculated move by Clarke which may have succeeded even though Nonis matched. His goal is simply to drive up salary of good RFA coming off their rookie contract. That looks insane because every team has the same cap, but in reality, teams have different budget. If salaries of good players and good prospects are high, teams with budget much lower than the cap are forced to have fewer good players and good prospects, relative to teams with budget at the cap. This is a move made by a large budget team to extract the maximum advantage from this cap system.